WIREDGOV

WIREDGOV NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE

A silent memory!

The FM of Wales, Carwyn Jones, is calling upon the people of Wales to pause & remember the Aberfan disaster with a minute’s silence at 9.15am on Friday 21 October 2016; exactly 50 years after the tragedy took place.

The 1966 disaster claimed the lives of 144 people, 116 of them primary school children, when a spoil tip containing waste material from coal mining slid down from its position on the hillside above the village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil.

With over 2,500 IT users and services spread across more than 90 separate buildings, many of which were outdated and inefficient to run, Bath & North East Somerset Council (BANES) operating costs were too high and staff were far too scattered for effective communication and collaboration.

A recent property rationalisation programme has seen the closure of a number of offices with services centralised in a new civic centre. This building is part of a £34 million regeneration project, achieving the top-level Display Energy Certificate (DEC) rating of A for energy efficiency (held by less than 1 per cent of public buildings in the UK).

The plan also included a large increase in flexible working with hot desks in the new building and a much greater degree of working from home.

BANES’ virtual desktop has been very successful. All main council offices have a ratio of two desks to three people. Staff members can sit wherever they choose to support their day’s work, encouraging cross-functional collaboration and ad hoc teaming.

As a result, the council has closed seven major offices and reduced total floor space by 40 per cent, enabling revenue savings of £3.5m per year.

The sad loss of babies / children still happens for some on a daily basis

Babyloss Awareness Week is held annually from 09 – 15 October. Involving 21 pregnancy & baby loss charities in the UK, it’s a special opportunity to mark the brief lives of babies lost in pregnancy or soon after birth. The Miscarriage Association’s National Director, Ruth Bender Atik, takes a look at how we can improve experiences of care when loss occurs.

For many if not most women and their partners, a positive pregnancy test means a ‘baby’ – not ‘fetus’ or ‘embryo’, so if they experience a miscarriage, however early in the pregnancy, that is what they are losing, along with their hopes, plans and dreams for their future child.

Of course that’s not true for everyone – not every pregnancy is greeted with joy and for some miscarriage may come with a sense of relief – but for many, feelings of shock, loss and grief can hit them hard.

There is no ‘Soft’ option; the ICO will come down ‘Hard’ on non-compliance

The Information Commissioner’s Office is warning business leaders that transparency with customers is fundamental if they want to succeed in the digital economy. A new code of practice has recently been launched by the ICO which sets out how organisations should explain to people how they’re using their personal information. It follows an ICO survey which found that only 1 in 4 adults trust businesses with their information.

The recent Privacy Notices guidance launch reinforces the message set out in Elizabeth Denham’s first speech as UK Information Commissioner that transparency & trust are essential to reputation & innovation in business.

The code of practice is the first piece of guidance published by the ICO that has been written to explain how to comply with both the existing Data Protection Act and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). EU countries must comply with the GDPR from 25 May 2018 (i.e. BEFORE Brexit is likely to happen)

The French Interior Minister and British Home Secretary have agreed to work together to ensure the successful dismantling of the Calais camp. A meeting on Monday 10 October 2016, focused on the strengthening of Franco-British cooperation in Calais, specifically in relation to the protection of children before, during & after the planned dismantling of the camp. Both the UK and French governments jointly agreed that the safety of vulnerable children in Calais is their utmost priority.

Amber Rudd confirmed the British government’s support for the French authorities in order to address the humanitarian situation in the camp and to protect the shared border. The British government will work to ensure the success of this operation, particularly in relation to 3 key points:

Firstly, in order to respond to the various humanitarian challenges in Calais, the Amiens agreement between the 2 countries of March 2016 which foresaw the resettlement of isolated minors in Calais with established family ties in the UK will be implemented & enlarged.

Secondly, France and the UK’s close cooperation against illegal immigration networks targeting the UK will be strengthened, with the aim of definitively ending all criminal activity carried out by people-smugglers. 31 smuggling networks have already been dismantled since the beginning of the year

Thirdly, British financial investment in Calais to help tackle the impact of migratory pressures in Calais – amounting to over €100m in the last 2 years – will be expanded to ensure the overall longer term security of the border and to contribute to the resettlement of migrants outside of Calais as part of the clearance operation.

UK Government and public sector spend with SME’s is continually on the increase and by 2020, it is the stated intent of Cabinet Office that £1 of every £3 spent on government contracts goes to SME’s. The past 5 years have seen government make a priority of getting money through its supply chain into the hands of SMEs, by both setting targets and introducing new procurement mechanisms.

Against this backdrop, the WiredGov Supplier Locator service has been developed specifically to embrace the SME Agenda and provide the ideal platform for SME’s to promote their services, solutions, accreditation and success stories directly to our ever increasing audience across all government and public sector verticals and Tier 1 suppliers.

Click here to find out more and view this week’s new arrivals to the SME Supplier Locator service.

It is not just a question of funding; more likely one of leadership & management

The Department for Education has recognised since 2010 that child protection services are not good enough but its subsequent response has not yet resulted in better outcomes.

Spending on children’s social work, including on child protection, varies widely across England and is not related to quality. Neither the DfE nor authorities understand why spending varies, according to a National Audit Office report.

Sorting out NHS & Social care is on a par with Brexit; All are critical to our financial future

Stephen Dalton, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, has responded to the CQCState of Care report released last week: “The report shows that the NHS is being stretched to the limit, especially after additional pressure caused by ongoing cuts to social care, mental health and public health.……

A major concern is the sustainability of social care provision. The CQC report exposes that one consequence of cuts to social care is a "race to the bottom" when awarding contracts to care providers. This means contracts are being handed back and providers withdrawing from this market."

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, has started its annual hunt for today’s academics & industrialists who deserve to be recognisedfor their contribution to computer science & engineering. The Institute is inviting nominations (by 16 January 2017) for its two annual academic awards; the Lovelace Medal, for senior academics & industrialists, and the Roger Needham* Award (sponsored by Microsoft Research), for those at mid-career.

Being white & middle-class should not make one a ‘more suitable’ candidate for promotion, but it appears to do so!

Unite, the union, is reaching out to NHS workplaces to combat the scourge of racismthat holds back the promotion prospects of black Asian and ethnic minority (BAEM) workers in the health service. Unite in Health, which has 100,000 members in the health service, has launched its Race Ahead In Health toolkit aimed at tackling race discrimination in the workplace.

A recent Unite snapshot survey of its BAEM members revealed lack of promotion for BAEM workers; racial harassment & bullying; and race discrimination in the job market. The launch of the toolkit will be accompanied by the offer of training by Unite to NHS staff & managers to tackle conscious & unconscious bias, and opposing race discrimination in the workplace.

The Transport Secretary has confirmed that the government is committed to pressing ahead with HS2to tackle the looming capacity crisis the rail network faces and to help boost jobs & regeneration along the line of the route and across the country. Construction is due to begin on the schemein the first half of 2017.

He has also confirmed plans to make £70m of government funds available to support local communities and road safety along the route between London and the West Midlands.

Remember the days of Sandwich courses and Day release / Evening Classes?

CIPD research suggests that for too many jobs the cost of university outweighs the economic benefits, and that the prevailing rhetoric on the need to get more & more young people into university needs to change.

The report by the CIPD finds that, for a wide range of occupations which have seen significant increases in graduate rates over the last 35 years, alternative vocational routes into employment are both possible & less costly, with a smaller proportion of this lower cost falling on the learner.

The Alternative pathways into the labour market report is published at a time when the average student is now leaving university with £44,000 of debt and, even by the Government’s own estimates, 45% of the value of student loans will not be repaid. The report calls into question the continued focus on the ‘graduate premium’, with previous CIPD research showing that more than half of graduates were working in non-graduate jobs after they left university. Furthermore, Brexit makes it even more important that the UK’s investment in education & skills delivers value for learners, employers and the economy.

Complaints about cheap ‘fireball’ mattresses sold online or from the ‘back of a van' have soared in some towns & cities, prompting a safety warning by councils & fire authorities. They often come with professional looking paperwork to buyers, but this contains false or limited contact details which makes it almost impossible for a consumer to get their money back under the 14-day ‘cooling off period'.

There is less than 1 week to go until the close of nominations in the St David Awards. The Awards acknowledge the achievements and great deeds & contributions made by people from all walks of life of people the length & breadth of Wales.Closing date for nominations is midnight on the 21 October 2016.

People & organisations should check if they have the defibrillator models, LIFEPAK CR Plus and LIFEPAK EXPRESS Automatic External Defibrillators (AED), because an electrical fault. Approximately 2,577 devices are defective.

Local authority chief executives were in Newcastle last week for their annual conference, where newly-elected president Jo Miller, chief executive of Doncaster, told them she would champion women, inclusion and diversity. Some of the same themes emerged when Dawn Foster interviewed the elected mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees.There has been much complaint about the lack of diversity among mayoral candidates, particularly for the metro mayor elections next year - Rees is an exception, though he notes that there is a stark lack of women being selected. He wants to see greater diversity not just in politics, but from within the council too.“Our case on diversity doesn’t start with the idea that it’s a nice thing to have for fluffy liberals. This is an essential part of getting a competent leadership that understands its city and can design services right first time,” he says.Also on the network last week, a piece by Rob Whiteman, former chief executive of the UK Border Agency, on why the government should offer an amnesty to the UK's illegal immigrants."I believe the public is ready for a mature debate where the outcome is a country that, post-Brexit, is more comfortable about the role of immigration in our economy and society," he writes. That remains to be seen.